<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>There's got to be a morning after by Writing_basketballs</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26641729">There's got to be a morning after</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_basketballs/pseuds/Writing_basketballs'>Writing_basketballs</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>IT (Movies - Muschietti)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Morning After, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:56:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,001</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26641729</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_basketballs/pseuds/Writing_basketballs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"you were great last night."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>48</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>There's got to be a morning after</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I should be updating my other fic BUT I really just wanted to get a fic done and written. O well. Also,, reference to a Nina Simone interview bc I love her. </p><p>Title of the fic is based off 'the morning after' by Maureen McGovern </p><p>Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>"You were great last night." </span>
  </em>
  <span>A croaky, deep voice summoned from the depths of Eddie's throat withdrew. His voice was the lazy afternoon spread of peanut butter on plain white bread toast. Smooth and sweet. Richie feels his lips press into the hidden crook of his neck under the comforters as a warm hand draws to his left arm. Richie would give anything in the world to wake up with Eddie Kaspbrak again. </span>
</p><p>He feels Eddie's unbelievably big, lively eyes burn through the side of his face. He lets him for a moment longer before looking back at him. </p><p>There's a beauty, Richie realizes, to the morning after. </p><p>
  <span>There's also a beauty to seeing someone who takes up a majority of your heart fall apart beneath you. Something so</span>
  <em>
    <span> fulfilling</span>
  </em>
  <span> and </span>
  <em>
    <span>desperate</span>
  </em>
  <span> that it becomes an art you plan to perfect. A novel of words you feel being </span>
  <em>
    <span>inside</span>
  </em>
  <span> someone you love so desperately, you don't know where to start. The words are there but turn course and brash in your mouth. Like the sweet, tangly taste of Lemon despite the obvious punch of sour it packs. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Richie looks at Eddie and his heart swells with </span>
  <em>
    <span>burning </span>
  </em>
  <span>affection.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eddie looks </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrecked. </span>
  </em>
  <span>His hair is a token from the night before of hair pulling and heads being shoved in pillows. His eyes carried bags that packed the stress of defeating killer clowns and everything in-between. His eyes are waxed with a certain morning gleam, and still a lovely dirt brown like the day they first met. </span>
</p><p>Something so gratifying as to waking up with Eddie bare chested sends burning rockets of affection to land and explode in Richie's heart. He lets his eyes wander to the well sculpted portion of his upper body like a sneak peek. Eddie seems to realize since he begins smiling with a lazy slyness, like a feline. </p><p>After one more scan of Eddie, whose naked under his blanket, he responds. "I was good?"</p><p>Eddie closes his eyes, chin planted into his arms. "You were great." </p><p>Richie licks his lips; Slowly and steadily. A tiny part of his brain combusts in realization that Eddie Kaspbrak, the man he's been in love with for thirty-ish years, thinks he's great in bed. </p><p>
  <span>A small memory becomes palpable from the blurry memories and recollections from his youth. A young Richie Tozier sitting in front of the TV listening to re-runs of the great artists before him. Nina Simone, a brilliantly talented black woman, is cross legged in a vibrant article of clothes. The camera is zeroed on her face despite it all. He doesn't know </span>
  <em>
    <span>why </span>
  </em>
  <span>he remembers it, and he doesn't know why he's remembering it now.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"It's just a feeling. It's like, how do you tell somebody how it feels to be in love? How are you going to tell anybody who has not been in love, how it feels to be in love? You cannot do it to save your life! You can describe things, but you can't tell 'em. But you know it! When It happens." </span>
  </em>
</p><p>Richie looks at Eddie with the memory replying in his head. He looks like he belongs here. Eddie was the bronze, golden summer living in New York, a cold icy tundra. Polar opposites, a place someone like Eddie Kaspbrak had no place living in anyway. He didn't belong in New York like he did here in LA. </p><p>Suddenly, Eddie's eyes are open and he's watching Richie. Richie can tell because he's studying him like a zoo exhibit. His eyes gloss over his face and his bare chest spurred with salt and pepper hairs. </p><p>"Richie.. about last night." Eddie sucks in a breath and Richie feels something like thunder strike in his chest with worry. </p><p>"Yeah, you were great too." He smiles weakly hoping that's what Eddie wants to hear. </p><p>Much to his dismay, it's not. Eddie shakes his head sadly and his eyes are polished with a shiny new coat of sadness. "Richie, I have to go back. To New York. You know that.." </p><p>Richie swallows and he feels like he's no longer in bed with Eddie. He feels the distance of being across the country between them as they lay in bed. He sees Eddie but it feels distant and misty. "You're going back? To New York?" </p><p>The stress Eddie carries becomes prominent in that moment. He brings his hands to his face and swipes away somberly. He's looking away from Richie but focused on something. Not something objectively, but something subjectively that seems to clutter up his mind. He looks tired, too tired for Richie's taste. If he were Myra, he wouldn't be able to sleep knowing his husband was off stressing so busily about god knows what. He would be there for Eddie, always asking what could he do for him, and how to help him. It's unfair.</p><p>"Eddie." Richie begins. His voice is unstable like a fat lady walking on shaky wood. </p><p>Eddie looks hurt and brings a hand up to stop him. No matter how much it pains Richie to see him so upset and distressed, the summer's sunny rays manage to make him look like a god. </p><p>"Richie don't say it. God, please, don't say it." Like a knife just digging further into the cavity of his chest. </p><p>"Eddie, I love you." </p><p>
  <span>There's silence. It's a congested silence that gave Richie chills. The outcomes of what Eddie could possibly say or do is giving him anxiety. What if he doesn't love him back? What if he doesn't wanna be around him anymore </span>
  <em>
    <span>because </span>
  </em>
  <span>Richie's </span>
  <em>
    <span>in love with him</span>
  </em>
  <span>? </span>
  <em>
    <span>And what if-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sniffle.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>Richie whips his head to find Eddie disheveled and crying in his blanket. His nose is flushed pink-turning-red and runny while his eyes are tinted a pink and glossy only stoners, pinkeye patients, and cryers are custom to. His hair is no longer gelled down and pristine, but messily pointing in every direction. He's never seen Eddie in such a state. He was always polished, prim, and proper like a doll; even fighting evil clowns from outer space he looked untouched. But here, he was so blemished.</p><p>
  <span>"No. No, you can't love me. You </span>
  <em>
    <span>don't </span>
  </em>
  <span>love me." Eddie nothing but whales. </span>
</p><p>The memory he just restored comes back to him. Maybe this is why he remembered it today, in bed with Eddie.</p><p>
  <span> "Eddie I'm in love with you; So fucking in love and stupid. I can't tell you what it's like to be in love, but-but I can describe it. And," He takes a breath and exhales, careful not to trip on his words. "And I can feel it. I know it's you. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It's always been you, Eddie." </span>
  </em>
  <span>He's been hiding how he felt for 27 years, unable to know what it was that made him feel like a coward. Now that he's got the chance, he needs to go through with it. </span>
</p><p>Eddie sniffs again with his eyes lowered. "Then describe it to me. I want to know." The words come out enticing and soft.</p><p>This. This is not what Richie could simplify in words. His love for Eddie Kaspbrak was laced into every single part of him, threaded from the day they first met and it's still weaved into every little memory they create. Like using a gold pan to search for gold in a river, he shakes out all the tiny details of being in love with Eddie to word the big description. The big things that made Richie fall in love with him.</p><p>"Well. There's a way you can be so courageous and affirmative that none of us could be and it inspired me, y'know. Like watching Simba become the true king of the Pride Lands." Richie mutters. His eyes are locked with Eddie's who seems to appreciate his first reason.</p><p>"So you inspired me to be braver; and God Eddie. You were my best friend, and there's a certain extent of love a best friend can have before it turns into just worship." </p><p>
  <span>Eddie seems to choke on air at the admission of being </span>
  <em>
    <span>worshipped </span>
  </em>
  <span>by Richie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>"I worshiped you like a fucking God. I felt like I was exhausted every time you opened your mouth to say some mean ass shit to Stanley, or to insult me. I was </span>
  <em>
    <span>whipped</span>
  </em>
  <span>. And every time you laughed at my fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>stupid</span>
  </em>
  <span> jokes I felt… I felt complete." Richie is looking at Eddie who has tears running with no intent of stopping. He cups his hands around his mouth in awe and Richie snorts in a gross way like he was clearing his sinuses. </span>
</p><p>"Eddie, you made me feel complete. For 27 years I was, hate to admit it but, lonely and sad and incomplete. I felt like there was someone out there for me that I didn't even know would make me feel whole again. And then I saw you again, Eddie. I felt so complete and whole, and, and good! You make me feel good! And cared about!" </p><p>Richie pulls both of Eddie's hands away from his mouth to see the utter shock and surprise on his face. Eddie's eyes are hurriedly running over his entire face as Richie is mere inches away from him. </p><p>He's smiling tearfully at Eddie when the sun spills right between them, illuminating both their faces. </p><p>"Eddie, I love you; I know I do. But can I ask you something?" </p><p>Eddie seems to snap out of his shock by answering hurriedly. "Yeah, of course." His voice is airy and if Richie didn't know better, mesmerized. </p><p>"What does Myra make you feel?" </p><p>Eddie seems to snap out of this look of being spellbound by Richie. He looks peeved if anything about being questioned about his wife. The previous glisten and gleam in his eye now gone and dull, lips flat-lined and unamused, and his eyebrows comically lowered like Sam the Eagle. While he watches Eddie think, he thinks himself, but eventually stops. Richie doesn't want to further analyze how he's now officially Eddie's mistress, or whatever a male mistress is called. </p><p>"Don't bring Myra into this.." Eddie snaps in a murmur. </p><p>Richie rolls off his back to lay on his side, facing Eddie. "Why not?" Eddie looks like he's been hit with a multiple choice question he didn't have time to study for. </p><p>"Well because she cares about me! She likes to cook and clean for me. She likes to lay out outfits for me too.." Eddie explains. His voice was drowned in sleep, hushed, raw, and deep. If he wasn't talking about his wife in such a positive light, it would got him hot. </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Sounds like he's married to a maid. Or his mommy. </span>
  </em>
  <span>"Sounds like you married your mom to me." Richie muses outwardly. Eddie doesn't seem too keen on that assumption because his eyes flare with a flame that only Eddie Kaspbrak could conjure upset.</span>
</p><p>"You're the worst, you know that? Just because she likes doing shit for me doesn't make her my mom." He bites, sitting up. His face is flushed in a new coat of peeved pink and he's fumbling for his jeans. Richie watches him, afraid he's finally ran him off for good. He doesn't wanna fan the flame but his mouth has a mind of its own.</p><p>"I've heard you talk to her, man. She's literally Sonia Kaspbrak two-point-o. You know it too, you just don't wanna admit it." Richie scoffs, getting up himself. He's on the opposite side of the bed, away from Eddie and it's probably a good thing. If he's reading into his scowl right, Eddie would have immense pleasure choking Richie to death if he was within choking radius.</p><p>
  <span>Eddie's voice is edged icily. "Even if she was, I have a life, Richie. I have responsibility. I can't just </span>
  <em>
    <span>walk out on her." </span>
  </em>
</p><p>"Fine, don't walk out on her. Be miserable for the rest of your fucking life, like I care. But I know you don't love her." Richie grumbles. And Eddie's eyes soften like he caught himself saying something regretful. "You told me all the shit she does for you but not how it makes you feel. It makes you feel grateful, but is that it? What about the little things, huh? Does she make sure to write little sticky notes in your lunch about how you're always in her thoughts? Huh? Or-or, she remembers you talking about a restaurant a week ago and surprised you by taking you there?" </p><p>Eddie sighs. "Richie.."</p><p><span>"Eds, marriage is more than </span><em><span>your fucking laundry.</span></em> <em><span>I love you,</span></em><span> and you </span><em><span>use </span></em><span>me to get your rocks off for the night just to go back to </span><em><span>her? </span></em><span>Fine. I don't care. And you know why? </span><em><span>Because I love you. </span></em><span>I love your jackass and it </span><em><span>hurts like hell. </span></em><span>But as long as I have you, married or not, it's worth it. You can go back to New York to Myra, forget all about me, but I'll never stop. I'll never stop trying to call, write, whatever. I remember. I remember everything and how you make me feel, and-" and his voice is uneven, "and you're everything to me, Eddie. Fuck, </span><em><span>you're everything." </span></em><span> Fat, salty tears roll down the hills of Richie's cheeks as he looks at Eddie. For an answer, a monologue, </span><em><span>something. </span></em></p><p>Eddie sniffs again and licks his bottom lip before roughly sliding a hand from his temples to the nap of his neck in his chocolatey tufts of hair. </p><p><span>Wetly, Eddie </span><em><span>finally </span></em><span>replies. "You never knew how to stop. You-you do this thing, Richie. You can make anyone feel like they're the only person in the fucking room. You made people feel special. </span><em><span>Warm, </span></em><span>y'know?</span> <span>And you never stopped trying to make me feel that way for 8 years. You made me feel brave, and-and special, and funny. I loved that about you Richie." </span></p><p>
  <span>"What about Myra? You married her. Why are you telling me this?" </span>
  <em>
    <span>Like some sort of fucking false hope.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>Eddie looks like he's tempted to cry but refrains from doing so. "You were right. You were always right in the wrong fucking ways!" His voice is screwy and inflamed and his eyes brighten with passion. "Wha-"</p><p>"I'm getting a divorce. Because you're right. I always knew there was something about Myra familiar; but not like that. Never like that. And.. and she doesn't make me feel a certain way I can describe," </p><p>Eddie strolls over to Richie and takes his hand into Richie's. Richie notices how much softer and slender they were compared to his own. </p><p>Eddie smiles up at Richie with unforgivable affection which melts Richie's previously cold exterior away instantly. "Like when I'm with you." His free hand slides to cup Richie's cheek into the palm of his hand. His belly feels ballooned with unconventional warmth and the tickling feeling of butterfly wings flapping inside. </p><p>"I love you too, Richie. I never meant to hurt you like that. If I knew better, I wouldn't have come last night. I think it's always been you too." He moves to press himself into Richie's burly chest. Richie, in reaction, squeezes his arms around the small of Eddie's back to press him as close as he can to him to feel nothing but Eddie against him. </p><p>"Don't say that." Richie mutters, kissing the center of his scalp. "Please, don't ever say that. You did a damn good job last night. I'll treasure it forever." He hums, swaying lightly. "Well, know that I know you're not going back to Myra, I can treasure it forever." </p><p>Eddie pushed himself lightly from Richie's chest. "I still have to go back and collect my things Richie." Richie pauses to look down at him. "Where are you going to stay?" </p><p>Eddie looks stuck himself. "Shit. I haven't really planned that far." </p><p>
  <span>Richie's eyebrows shoot up. "Eddie Kaspbrak? Hasn't planned </span>
  <em>
    <span>that far? </span>
  </em>
  <span>By God, the world must be ending." He swoons dramatically, wrist to his forehead. Eddie rolls his eyes and huffs. "I wasn't expecting to even be here with you like this to begin with." He mumbles and it did hurt just a smidge hearing that. Eddie could have easily booked a flight back all the way across the country where a miserable life was waiting for him. But he chose Richie. And that's the flex tape that would seal his broken heart.</span>
</p><p>"Do you regret last night?" Richie asks, his words bouncing off Eddie's neck where his lips touched. He felt Eddie shiver and release a much needed sigh. "You were good, Rich. Like, impressively good."</p><p>Richie stands back up to his full height to look down at Eddie, who's somehow able to give him a round of applause with just a look. Impressed, his eyes are relaxed with his eyebrows shot up with a tiny smirk dancing across his face. Richie takes the opportunity to smile smugly with his eyebrows raised exaggeratingly high. </p><p>
  <span>"My dick was </span>
  <em>
    <span>that </span>
  </em>
  <span>good? Enough to make you divorce your wife and run out a' New York </span>
  <em>
    <span>good? </span>
  </em>
  <span>Eddie baby, you make me feel like a million bucks." He grins pulling Eddie's slim figure into him. Eddie let's out a tiny laugh in his chest, attempting to shove Richie away. "You're ridiculous." He huffs, but the adoring smile was evident in his voice. Richie smiles even harder, wobbling against his face. </span>
</p><p>"But you really don't regret this?" Richie whispers. His words ooze insecurity as he looks at Eddie for reassurance. </p><p>
  <span>Eddie cups his cheeks in his palms, </span>
  <em>
    <span>so damn tender, </span>
  </em>
  <span>and engulfs Richie into a slow, sweet kiss. The kiss must have lasted for a good seven seconds before Eddie pulls back, giving him enough time to look at Richie's face cupped in his palms. His big brown now eyes glitter with adoration as his lips pull upward into a genuine grin with his smile lines more pronounced. Richie can't help but soften in Eddie's hands himself. </span>
</p><p>"I don't regret not a second." And Eddie pulls him back into a kiss. </p><p> </p><p><br/>
<br/>
</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>